


Viennese Tears

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Third Man (1949)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-24
Updated: 2005-10-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holly Martins/Harry Lime. glossolalia requested something in the bleak, existential spirit of the film.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Viennese Tears

**Author's Note:**

> Written for glossolalia

 

 

 

 

It is raining.

The streets are coated with a slick wetness that lends them false allure. Filtered afternoon light glances off tar and damp pavement, glinting weakly as it strikes rubble and debris. Footsteps echo through deserted laneways. Rays fade out as the sky begins to darken, brewing up fat black clouds. It is raining again in the city.

Your coat is turned up at the collar, shielding the relentless droplets. Some writer could dash you to the page as a villain, with your black garb and your nonchalant gait, eyes darkly gleaming. You wouldn't care. The face that is so carefully presented to the world is nothing if not youthful.

You are pressed into the same alcove when he arrives. The cat is mewing quietly, happily, as if it has no notion of time or circumstance. It writhes around your feet, blinking up at the newcomer in the rain.

"I've missed you," he murmurs.

Martins, you think. Always the same. Stupid bloody Martins. But then his tongue is in your mouth, slick like the weather, and you breathe in.

Cold but sweet, tempered with the tears of the Viennese sky, you can taste every second of that first time. You can feel his hands again, his body on yours, his cries in the bare little room. There's a glimpse of scorn, there, and something that's almost pity. But not quite.

"They've taken Anna," he whispers.

"Sorry, old boy, but you know I can't do anything about that." Can't, won't. Same thing, really.

"You used to believe in God."

"And I still do, Holly, I still do."

"All those children mean nothing to you, I suppose?"

Such a cowboy, you muse. Such a nave cowboy. He's still looking at you with those big eyes.

"Now listen, Holly. Some people have their gods up there, you know what I mean, old man? But me, my god is this." You prod your chest with a finger.

It is an illusion, you know; an illusion that will fade in the city's web of smoke and spiraling staircases. Yourself, a source of morality? Barely even a mirage. You are so removed from the existentialist values that responsibility seems opaque, transient, fleeting - a spectral hand in your grasp.

As for the Nietzschean amorality with which the others credit you... well, there is little of the overman in a filthy racketeer. What was it Calloway said? Making a dirty living in this city...

While your thoughts have drifted idly, Martins is leaning even further in. The warm edges of that ridiculous coat rub teasingly against your neck. Every detail of opulent grace is reflected in those orblike eyes, mocking you, laughing at your own glory. You want to throw Martins to the floor.

But this is not Lime talking. This is not calm, cool, _collected_ Lime - surely? Gently unhooking Martins' fingers from your collar, you draw in a deep breath.

"Tomorrow, the Casanova Club. Eight-thirty."

And you are gone.

*****

It could be some kind of sick reunion. Kurtz on the violin, leering over a stranger's shoulder in the corner. Popescu at the bar, watching your hands as they twitch beneath the fabric of the coat pockets.

You always twitched around him. His voice has that quality that sets a pulse ticking in your thumb. A frustration you cannot kill. There's something unique about the way he speaks. Stupid? Maybe. Innocent? Certainly.

There is less of that innocence now as he approaches the table; eyes fixing on you.

"Have a seat, old man."

The two of you talk idly of this and that, here and there. Martins has been bumbling his way through a book discussion ("I mean, who is this Joyce character anyway?") You do not mention Anna. You do, however, mention school days.

By the fifth drink his, steps are faltering and arms gesture wider and wider. If you take him home, you know what will happen.

It doesn't bother you.

These things never do.

*****

The cab driver says little. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. At any rate there is no Kurtz watching your every move, looking over Martins with jealous eyes.

Hot flesh spills over your neck. He seems to have forgotten where you are.

"Missed you, Harrrrry..."

You make it out of the doors just in time. The screech of the cab ricochets around the street as you move towards the apartment, Martins affixed to your shoulder.

There's the landing and then stairs and then the two of you wrapped over the sofa. Martins presses against you, brushing chest and hips against yours.

It's all for you, and you're hardly about to stop it. You'd forgotten just how tall Martins was - just how long-limbed and sudden and needy he was. How his lips parted when he swooped down on you from above.

Kurtz looks in around two. You are in bed, one eye half-open, attuned to the thin sliver of light from the door. Martins is under the sheet beside you, red-lipped, sleeping, breath pulsing like a tainted angel.

Kurtz's parting smile is wolfish and dark. You sleep until morning, when you have wiped his nighttime intrusion from your mind.

*****

He's off to the station in the morning. Farewells are lengthy and dull, so you limit yours to the front doorstep.

"Goodbye, Harry."

He looks into your eyes.

"I'm going to miss you."

"I'm going to miss you too, Holly." You lie, and you wonder when exactly he became Holly. "Look after yourself, old man."

The sentiment is not returned. Perhaps he knows it is not necessary.

You trail slowly along behind him, shadowing him through alleyways and backstreets and little shady detours. Anna is not in this quarter; of that much you are sure. He makes the train in good time, wrapped up in that same old coat.

Clouds of steam drift like funereal breath across the platform. You slip between hips and shoulders; barely there, a dark shape in this world of hues. Jostling and teeming, the passengers press toward the train.

Martins is checking his luggage. The conductor shows him on, smiling broadly and gesturing. Many people are smiling. You wonder what they have to be happy about.

The train chugs out of the station, howling its departure with the wail of a whistle. Waving hands press against windows. Faces speed past you, old and young and male and female and happy and sad, until mouth blurs into mouth and you can't discern their features.

Martins is gone.

 

 

 


End file.
